Doctors should have a greater role in organising health services

Doctors should be encouraged to engage in more open dialogue with the public and play a more active role in managing and designing health services, according to a UK report published last week that explored how doctors can maintain public confidence in their professionalism.

The report found that individual doctors were highly trusted by the public but that confidence in the profession as a whole had been undermined by recent scandals, including incompetence in paediatric heart surgery at Bristol (BMJ 2001;323:181), mass retention of children's organs by a pathologist at Alder Hey hospital (BMJ 2001;322:255), and the murder of more than 200 patients by a GP, Harold Shipman (BMJ 2002;325:181).